


Appassionato

by beedekka



Category: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:42:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beedekka/pseuds/beedekka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maks faces his toughest season on Dancing With The Stars yet.  Not only is he competing against the other couples, he is struggling for control over his own feelings.  Is Brandy the woman who will finally drive him crazy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appassionato

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thekingofcosmos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekingofcosmos/gifts).



> This is a work of fiction. The author claims no similarity between real life and the content, will make no money from this story, and intends no offence by it.

“So, how’s this _really_ going to go, Maksim?”

Maks shrugged and twisted his lips into a wry smile. “You want to know? Okay. First, you’re going to dance very well, but everyone will hate you, and then they’ll edit the training videos so it looks like we fight all the time. _Then_ they’ll hint that we are sleeping together, and finally… we won’t win. Is that enough ‘telling it like it is’ for you?”

Brandy frowned. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, I’m being dramatic, and cynical. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going to happen; we just have to dance the best we can. I’m going to make you dance the best you can.”

And he meant it. At first, that was all he thought he was going to do.

 

***

 

Later, Maks realised what it really was that Brandy shouldn’t have said, and it wasn’t her plea for honesty about how the season would probably play out. It was that silly, throwaway line she gave about how she thought he was so hot. It had started his mind ticking over; it started his _body_ ticking over. It turned him into an idiot.

The Viennese Waltz had them spinning and spinning, and when he slid his hand over the silk of her dress and held up her thigh, Maks suddenly felt his head spinning as well. Then, when the judges called him out on choreographing that solo section into the Jive, he was equally stunned. He thought she looked good doing those moves… _he_ thought. Could he actually trust himself to do a professional job with her? Two weeks in and he was starting to think that his grasp on this had already begun slipping away from him.

Brandy had been right to toss him under the bus; he knew that was true as soon as he asked Tony what he thought about the Jive and his response was… diplomatic, to say the least.

 

“Oh shit, Tony. For real?”

“Well, I can see why you put that stuff in. She’s good at it, and it was sassy and whatever, but in week two? I think what I’m really saying is that normally you’re playing a little safer at this stage, Maks. Getting rebellious and being sexy with it is for when everybody’s had time to get used to the couple. You’ve been around each other for a month, but the audience has seen you _twice_ , y’know? It’s still first impressions.” Tony paused and looked carefully at Maks, who was deliberately scanning the floor. “Hey, but I wouldn’t be worrying about it too hard; you’re not going to be out this week because of it.”

“I hope.”

“I _know._ The voting isn’t that stupid.” Slowly, curiosity clouded Tony’s expression and he ducked over a little to catch Maks’s eyes. “What’s going on with you? Is this a Maksim Chmerkovskiy ‘self-doubt and question my ability’ moment?”

Maks gave a half-laugh and turned to look at Tony properly. “It’s a ‘question my sanity’ moment, that’s all.”

Tony smiled. “Repeat after me: you’re a good dancer, you’re a good choreographer, you are not insane. Then get on with your life.”

Maks took a breath. “You’re a good dan- wait, I’m telling _you_ this!”

“Ha ha! And I’m touched you feel that way, man.” Tony grinned his megawatt grin and winked. “Seriously though, get past it. That dance is gone now.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Tony turned to walk off, but he stopped and looked back over his shoulder briefly, almost as an afterthought.

“Maks? For the time you’re in the competition, just… try and forget that you’re fucking crazy for her, okay?”

Then he was gone, and Maks was staring at the floor again with blood rushing to his face.

 _Fuck._

 

***

 

Maks pounded through some steps, driving into the battered floor of the studio with a lot more force than was necessary, speeding up and travelling twice as far as he had to. Then he repeated the sequence, and kept on doing it until he had to throw off his shirt and wipe the sweat from his forehead to stop it running down his face. He knew this was a pointless way to push himself, but as his breathing quickened and his heart pounded, he felt better than he had for days. Len and Bruno talked about ‘dancing to the limit’ and ‘taking risks’ and he knew exactly what they meant: reaching that point where losing control of the dance began to feel like a real possibility. It took him a lot of effort to get to that stage, to make movements that he hadn’t done a thousand times before… to _force_ movements that pushed his body into positions and angles that made his muscles shake and burn. But when he pulled it off, the rush was as intense as electricity bolting through him.

When he finally slowed down and dropped to the floor, spread-eagling and staring at the bright white ceiling, he could feel his cock lying hard and heavy in his sweat pants. He closed his eyes and grimaced: in a split-second all of this had become tied inextricably in with _her_.

 _“Do you like it when I do this, Maks?”_

“Yeah…”

 _“Do you want me to pull my panties off, Maks?”_

“I…”

 _“If I bend over like this, you can see everywhere I want you to touch me, Maks.”_

“Oh god.”

 _“I want you inside me. I’m so ready… I need you, Maks.”_

Swearing, he opened his eyes and got to his feet too fast. Everything in his head had become a stupid fantasy – pure pornography.

In the shower he jerked his cock to mental images of bleached blonde girls with bouncing pneumatic breasts and five-inch stripper heels, and smacked the tiled wall in frustration as they took him far enough to get his abdomen clenching, but couldn’t send him over the edge.

 _“Put it inside me, Maks. I want to feel you come inside me.”_

“Brandy, I don’t want…”

 _“That’s it, come for me, baby.”_

With a ragged gasp and another smack to the tiles, he came hard into his hand, come dripping from his fingers and washing away as quickly as the flood of guilt engulfed him.

He spun the dial to cold and stood there for a long time afterwards.

 

***

 

This was supposed to be the season where he was a ‘good boy’ for a change. Yeah. The producers liked it when he said that; it gave them carte blanche to try and show him up as a bad boy twice as hard. Though everyone knew he was only paying lip service to a good guy image, anyway – even Brandy knew it. But he wondered just what she’d think if she knew the things that had been running through his mind when he thought about her. _They_ made him a bad boy, and they made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. Before now, he’d been proud to tell himself he didn’t buy into any of the dick-led bullshit about women that bypassed their personalities and turned them into porn cliché spouting sex dolls. He’d considered himself a better man than that. Now he felt like every action he completed in her presence was driven by some strange, unwieldy lust… He felt like he did when he was seventeen.

At least that would explain why he’d thought that The Bodyguard would be a good idea for the Samba. He cringed in hindsight. When she had told him it was her favourite film he couldn’t have considered anything more perfect. It was the ideal way to prove to himself that he didn’t just think about her sexually; he thought about protecting her, _saving_ her. But Len didn’t see his actions towards her in that light – Len saw right through him with the kind of clarity that came with all his years of life. And Maks knew that Len used to dance with his own wife, so he’d bet money that the guy had a good insight into the mess that came with love and sex and dancing.

 

***

 

It was late at night, but he found himself back in the studio again, pounding through that same out of control routine he’d conceived the week before, only he’d added in some tricks this time. He ran at walls and sprang off them, sprinted to within an inch of the mirror and screamed at his own reflection. There was no one there to hear him, or to notice if he misjudged a flip and knocked himself out on the cold wooden floor.

Now he really was dancing on the edge.

He reckoned that Len thought he was already fucking Brandy, and he had to concede that it would have been a lot easier on his mind if he _was_. However, there was something he could hold on to: in the face of Len’s comments, she had stood up for him; she’d praised his coaching and shored up their partnership when Brooke asked about it.

In the shower, he intentionally pictured her this time, and there wasn’t just random porno-speak coming out in her voice. In his head she sounded like herself, and his hand on his cock felt as though hers was ghosting over it, covering it like she did when they were in hold.

 _“I’m so happy I’m with you, Maks.”_

“I am, too, baby.”

When he came, he leant into the warm spray of the shower and let the water flow around his neck and shoulders like a caress, looking down to see it washing over his bracelet and imagining it was Brandy’s fingers around his wrist.

 _“You’re mine.”_

“I know.”

 

***

 

It felt strange to be on a ‘date’ together. At the table he messed around and pushed the flowers at Brandy as fast as he could, in case the cameras caught the tiny shake in his hands. It was one of those moments that reminded him he really was in trouble with this; it wasn’t even a real night out and yet he still felt stupidly nervous. At least when he was performing a dance he could fall back on skill to get him through, but when they were outside the studios he couldn’t lose that fear of being constantly exposed.

In contrast, Brandy always seemed at ease and confident, and so, so beautiful. Dancing the Rumba with her was like exquisite torture, slow and super-sensitised, and to have it followed by the fast and frenetic Quickstep made a strange contrast in itself. Maks could see it as a reflection of the differences in themselves – they were both intense, but Brandy was feminine and serene, and he was just a fucking frenzy.

When he danced alone in the rehearsal room after week five, he didn’t even think about what he was doing; he just pounded out his ritualistic routine as though he couldn’t feel the pain in his chest where his heart was beating out of it, or the dull ache that started in his knees when he fell to them at the end.

In the shower, he watched the bruises start to bloom, and wondered how it would feel if she were to touch him now.

 

***

 

The marks on his legs still stood out an angry purple a week later, and as they got changed between dances during the camera run, Tony caught sight of them.

“Jesus, Maks. How did that happen?” he asked.

“I blew a lift,” Maks lied. “I kept hold of Brandy but I had to drop down onto my knees. Fucking painful, right?”

“Yeah.”

 _Yeah_ , so was bullshitting your friend, but he was doing it for the sake of… what? Pretending that he’d actually taken Tony’s advice not to act crazy, he supposed.

He’d felt every accidental knock Brandy had given him Tangoing and doing the stupid Rock n’ Roll marathon, but he realised that he’d almost come to relish the discomfort, as though it proved that there was contact between them. If that wasn’t a sign of some kind of wild thinking on his part, he couldn’t really explain it any better way.

 

***

 

The weeks of the Foxtrot and the Waltz blurred into a haze of the same kind of over-blown feelings and actions, and while he was focussing on Brandy, Maks could feel that he was stepping onto dangerous ground with the other people around him. It wasn’t a comfortable position to be in, but he didn’t seem to be able to pull back from it. He’d been a hair’s breadth away from cursing Carrie Ann out on camera at one point, and he was pretty sure it had been obvious, too.

Now when he danced alone in front of the mirrored wall of the rehearsal room, he hurled his frustration at his own reflection instead. Carrie Ann had criticised his choreography, and maybe she was right. Maybe he did have something to curse himself about, and he _was_ the one holding Brandy back. But if Carrie Ann could see him doing _this_ , she wouldn’t be able to say his choreography was sub-par…

He’d put in even more tricks now, challenging himself to do them at full tilt in whatever order they came to him, no matter where he was in the room. He switched up timings and directions, even turned the lights off for a while. It intrigued him as to why the only times when he still _felt_ in real control of himself were the times when he was absolutely – objectively – sure that he was not.

 

And then came the semi-final.

 

***

 

Maks knew it was already enough of an abuse of the studio owner’s trust that he was letting himself in and out of the rehearsal rooms at all hours of the night, but when he smashed two of the chairs against a wall and the mirror, he somehow couldn’t bring himself to be concerned. He kicked the broken seats out of the way and tossed the portion of glass that had sheared off into a corner, gritting his teeth as it shattered into pieces on the floor. He needed all the space he could get to dance his frenzied ritual as hard as he wanted to this time.

Every jump was bigger, every turn faster, and every flip a little more haphazard. What did he care? It wasn’t as if a fall would be career-ending, after all! Or paralysing… but he wasn’t going to fall. His body was tight and tuned like a machine – they’d danced the best they ever had in front of those cameras tonight. He felt invincible. It had felt like he and Brandy were invincible. So much for that.

He got a glimpse of his fractured reflection as he whirled past the mirror wall, and it was as distorted as he figured the voting must have been.

 _Oh well, it’s their choice. It’s what I ‘respect’ and ‘admire’,_ he thought bitterly.

Then thought deserted him completely and he hammered out his steps like an avalanche on the floor until he collapsed, his energy spent. All he could do was lie there and listen to his own breathing and heartbeat become steadily, fractionally calmer.

Minutes passed and he wondered what was going on back at the media circus. As his anger subsided, guilt was sidestepping into its place. After the twentieth interview he’d acted like he was just going for five minutes to get some air, and instead he’d taken his bag from the dressing room and walked out of a fire escape. Then he’d switched his cell off and come straight here. Presumably he was going to catch hell from various people tomorrow – he was well aware how taboo it was for a professional to have done that, but he was only really worried about the reaction of one person.

 

***

 

He looked up as he heard the door to the studio opening. Before he even saw her, he had a strange feeling it would be Brandy.

“Maks?”

“How did you know I was here?”

“When you disappeared, I was looking for you. I was upset that I couldn’t find you, and then Tony told me that he thought you’d started coming here at night.”

She looked around and Maks watched her eyes widen as she saw the broken furniture and the crack across the mirror.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to get in,” she continued slowly. “But you just left everything open downstairs! I… I put the latch on behind me.” Suddenly her expression crumpled. “Maks! What are you doing here? Are you hurt?”

“No, no I’m not hurt.” Realising he was still lying on the floor, Maks pressed his palms to it and quickly pushed himself up. “I just broke some things; I’ll pay for them.” He crossed the room to where Brandy was standing motionless, and his heart nearly froze when he saw the fear in her face. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he blurted out.

Brandy gasped. “I didn’t think for a second you were! I’m crying because I’m worried for _you_ , not me… I can understand if you were angry and you bust up the chairs because we went out of the competition, but you’ve got a look in your eyes and it’s wild, Maks. It’s not angry – it’s something else.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I know this must look a little strange.”

“A little strange!” Brandy exclaimed. “You run off and start crashing around in here like a madman, and you’re saying it’s _a little strange_?”

She pushed past him abruptly, getting out of reach before he could move to grab her arm.

“Brandy…”

“Maks, do you think you’re the only one who’s upset about tonight? We did _everything_ we could, and we still went out. Do you know how disappointed I am that my best wasn’t good enough – that no matter what I do, the world just won’t be behind me?”

“I’ll be behind you.”

“No, you won’t, because when you could have been, you came here instead and _I_ had to come and get behind _you_! You left me on my own there and they hadn’t even finished doing the press line up.”

“I didn’t trust myself not to say something I’d regret.”

“Well, it was a great help.”

“Brandy, I said… I was saying all these things to you like, ‘it’s not a statement on life’ and ‘it’s just Dancing With The Stars – it’s a career move for you whatever happens.’ But for me? It _is_ a statement about my life, my professionalism, because dancing professionally is my life. There are different pressures. I just had to get out of there for a little while. I’m sorry.”

“You’re saying that your professionalism is your life? I didn’t see you following that through tonight. I didn’t see you following _us_ through, Maks.”

Her words stopped his train of thought in its tracks.

“What do you mean by that?”

“That it was ‘professional’ for us to stick by each other tonight, until the end. That I needed you there and you went off.”

Maks could only stand silently and feel the odd mix of hope and anger that had been threatening to bubble up inside him deflate away to nothing. She was right, and he had played this all wrong. He thought he was acting for the best, but Len had been right all the time; he wasn’t her Bodyguard when it mattered, and if he was honest with himself, that wasn’t all about professionalism.

For a short moment he’d let himself think that she meant something else when she said he hadn’t followed ‘them’ through, and the mistake twisted his gut; he knew that the maelstrom of his feelings towards her was the real reason he’d bolted straight to his hideaway here.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“Okay, accepted, because I know that we’re stronger together,” Brandy said, simply. “Now we are again,” she added, glancing around the studio. “Right where we started, too.”

Maks coughed awkwardly. “Yeah. It’s scenic.”

She frowned.

“Brandy?”

“Yes…”

Maks made a split-second decision.

“Can I kiss you?”

Brandy blinked and inhaled sharply, and Maks felt his body start trembling like his nerves were wired up.

“Can I?”

She still wasn’t answering.

 _Please don’t say no,_ he pleaded internally.

Then she started moving, flying towards him to meet his mouth with her lips.

 

***

 

They kissed for what felt like a ridiculous amount of time, clutching at each other desperately. To Maks, Brandy’s touch now seemed so much more impassioned than when they were just dancing that it almost defied belief. And he was doing all the things that he could never choreograph: sucking at her tongue, pulling her hair down… it made him feel like he was still dancing in his out of control routine.

It wasn’t until he became conscious of how her fingers were sliding in the sweat at the back of his neck and under his shirt that he shivered and finally pulled away from her. “I’m sticky and disgusting. I would have been showered if you were ten minutes later,” he apologised.

“I’m used to it, Maks. Have you forgotten the last three months?” Brandy laughed, and Maks swore he could hear the same relief and euphoria he was getting from this situation coming out in her voice.

“No, I certainly haven’t.” He smiled. “But I really have to shower anyway.”

Now it all seemed worth it – all the crazy feelings of being out of control and obsessive and conflicted. _She felt the same_!

Maks almost didn’t dare to say what came to his mind next, but he’d had one good result with acting on impulse already, so he went ahead and asked: “Do you… want to come in with me?”

Brandy stepped back a pace and dropped her hands to his waist before answering slowly, “Okay.”

 

***

 

In the small changing room, he stripped off and stepped into the shower, twisting the dial to check it was warm before Brandy got in. When he turned around, she was still standing in her clothes, and his heart immediately lurched in his chest. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… um, shyness. I know it’s hard to believe from me, huh? I haven’t done this in a long time.”

“I believe it,” Maks said, gently. “You’re a lady in a beautiful dress and this is… it’s a dirty shower in a Dancesports place. Oh god,” he muttered, “it’s not how I thought you and I would do this.”

Actually, his brain took delight in reminding him, he’d pictured it happening _exactly_ here every week for the last ten weeks. Except now Brandy was being herself, and not the sexist cliché his imagination had first allowed him to conjure up. No wonder she was being hesitant about doing this.

“I’ll just shower and get dressed again and we can get out of here,” he said hastily, turning in towards the hot spray and grabbing the soap. Perhaps the water would dampen his embarrassment; it certainly drowned out the dull thudding of his fantasies collapsing around him.

He let a moment pass before he pulled himself together and began rubbing the soap between his palms. Then, suddenly, he felt hands snaking around his hips, and lips pressing against his back as Brandy slid her naked body in behind his.

“Brandy,” he said, his voice coming out low and unsteady.

“I got over my fear,” she replied.

As she pulled him around to face her, joy flooded Maks’s body alongside the arousal her dancing fingers had begun to spark, and he wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Maks,” Brandy began, “I love dancing with you, and I want to do… _more_ with you.” She halted for a split-second and they ended up saying the same words to each other.

“I think I…”

“I love you.”

“…love _you._ ”

Then they could only kiss again, over and over underneath the cascading water, and Maks was certain Brandy had been right: together their passion was stronger, _they_ were stronger.

 

-Fin-


End file.
